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Announcement: SADiLaR’s project manager elected to serve The Carpentries
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) is proud to announce that our project manager, Mr Juan Steyn, was elected as one of the Executive Council members of The Carpentries project for 2019. The Carpentries project plays a fundamental role in providing worldwide training with the mission of teaching foundational computational and data…
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Text-to-speech technology offers youngster a suitable voice
Text-to-speech technology offers youngster a suitable voice In May this year, Carte Blanche aired a programme on text-to-speech (TTS) technology and voice banking which featured an insert on Alexander Avenant, a learner at New Hope School in Pretoria. Alexander, at that stage, used the CSIR’s Qfrency adult male Afrikaans TTS voice with augmentative and alternative communication software,…
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SADiLaR visits with European CLARIN centres
SADiLaR visits with European CLARIN centres Over the course of September and October, SADiLaR’s technical manager, Dr Roald Eiselen, visited with various European centres that form part of the Common Language Resource Infrastructure (CLARIN). The aim of the visits was to establish connections that will lead to future cooperation and collaboration with entities performing activities…
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2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages
Celebration of South African languages Language forms the heart and soul of communication, traditions, social integration, and education. Language also plays a vital role in representing various cultures and traditions, as well as capturing the history of a community. There are more than 6000 languages spoken in the world, but, at this very moment, many…
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University of South Africa (UNISA): Language Resource Development Node
The South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) and the University of South Africa (UNISA) are working in close collaboration with regard to the creation, management and distribution of digital language resources, which are made freely available. The UNISA node of SADiLaR, linked to the Department of African Languages, specialises in language…
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CSIR Voice Computing (VC) Research Group
The CSIR Voice Computing (VC) Research Group focuses on shaping South Africa’s digital future and is known for the research, development and innovation in the information and communication technology sector. Within the Institute, the VC Research Group focuses on solving communication challenges that South Africa face as a result of the lack of language resources…
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Integrating the RMA into SADiLaR with new technologies
Over the past five years the Language Resource Management Agency (RMA) has been the central repository for the distribution and management of language resources, data and software tools, for the official languages of South Africa. The RMA has provided an excellent foundation for SADiLaR to build on. With the knowledge and skills obtained from the…
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SADiLaR launches a new website and data repository
SADiLaR is excited to announce the launch of our website, which sets the foundation for us in our expanding role as African leader in the digital humanities (DH) and natural language processing (NLP) domains. The website offers users an overview of the various activities at SADiLaR, including our vision and mission, our strategic goals, as…
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Establishing a new infrastructure
English can be regarded as the de facto language of the digital age due to the rapid development of the internet and communication technology over the last three decades. However, speakers of other languages have taken up the challenge and there has been a concerted effort to develop digital tools and other resources in languages…
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SADiLaR Activities and Projects
Activities 2025 Conference presentations 2025 Conference workshops and tutorials and other events 2024 Conference presentations 2024 Conference workshops and tutorials and other events DH Colloquia SADiLaR organizes monthly Digital Humanities colloquia. These typically take place on Wednesdays (in the middle of the month) from 10:00 to 11:00 SAST. During these DH colloquia a wide variety…
